Panaji: Chief minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday expanded his cabinet by inducting two new ministers, taking the council of ministers in Goa to its full strength of 12.
Governor Pusapati Ashok Gajapati Raju administered the oath of office and secrecy to former Goa chief minister Digambar Kamat and ex-speaker Ramesh Tawadkar at the Cabo Raj Niwas, the Governor’s residence in Konkani.
For Kamat, this marks a return to ministerial office after a 13-year gap. He last held power in 2012 as chief minister before being succeeded by Manohar Parrikar. It has been his longest spell out of office since first being elected as an MLA on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket in 1994.
“I am happy that I will get strength to work for the common man in this state. I am returning to the cabinet after 13 years. I will get an opportunity to work even harder than before. God and the central leadership have given me this opportunity,” Kamat said.
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He first became a minister in the Parrikar cabinet in 2000 and remained a minister with the BJP until he defected to the Congress in 2005. He was elected chief minister of the Congress-led coalition government in 2007 and remained so until 2012, making him the only CM of the state of Goa till date to complete a full five-year term.
{{/usCountry}}He first became a minister in the Parrikar cabinet in 2000 and remained a minister with the BJP until he defected to the Congress in 2005. He was elected chief minister of the Congress-led coalition government in 2007 and remained so until 2012, making him the only CM of the state of Goa till date to complete a full five-year term.
{{/usCountry}}Kamat is facing trial in the Louis Berger bribery case. He was named in an illegal mining case, with the Justice M.B. Shah Commission estimating a loss of ₹35,000 crore to the state exchequer. The BJP—then in the opposition—had pegged the figure at ₹25,000 crore in a complaint to the President of India. However, he was discharged from the case earlier this year.
Tawadkar served as minister for sports, youth affairs, and tribal welfare under the Parrikar cabinet between 2012 and 2014, and later under Laxmikant Parsekar. In 2017, he quit the BJP after being denied a ticket and contested as an independent, but lost to Congress candidate Isidore Fernandes.
He rejoined the BJP and was elected in 2022, subsequently being elected speaker. He will take the post vacated by Govind Gaude, who was state’s minister for art, culture, sports affairs and rural development agency, and is widely expected to be handed the portfolios of Sports, youth affairs, and tribal affairs—portfolios he also held during his first tenure as minister between 2012 and 2017.
“From the day I have taken the responsibility (of the Speaker), since that day I have tried to do justice to the post. For the last three and a half years I can say, and not just me, but everyone I interacted with both within the Assembly and outside -- my staff was like my family. I treated both the ruling and opposition MLAs as colleagues and I earned the respect from the opposition just as I earned it from the ruling side,” Tawadkar, who resigned as speaker earlier in the day, said.
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“As I leave this post, I do so with a hint of regret that I was not able to complete the full five-year term. I have to take this decision with a heavy heart because the party has given me a different responsibility with a view on the 2017 assembly elections. For this, the party has given me this new responsibility,” he added.
A cabinet reshuffle in Goa was long pending, with several rounds of consultation between the state and central leadership. Notable absences at the swearing-in ceremony included Govind Gaude, who was dismissed from the cabinet earlier this year, as well as MLAs Michael Lobo and his wife Delilah Lobo.
The BJP is likely to put forward the name of Ganesh Gaonkar, a legislator from Sanvordem, for the post of speaker, while the opposition is yet to decide on its candidate.